Fat Friar Phantom Menace
by Drollittle
Summary: Hogwarts ghosts usually mind their own business, but when things get really dreadful, they just might take umbrage. AU. This has nothing to do with my other stories, and nothing to do with Star Wars.


The Fat Friar (Simon Brown as he had once been called, though even he usually considered himself "The Fat Friar" now) watched the House Elves finish their work in the kitchens. As much as he loved the sight of a fully bustling kitchen, he loved the winding-down scenes of a kitchen late at night still more dearly. The elves assigned to collect laundry were out doing their rounds. The elves assigned to bake bread in the morning were asleep. Only a handful of elves put away the final dishes, gave the floor one last mopping, and at last they popped away to their little beds. _Bless their hearts_ , the Friar chuckled as he turned from the dark kitchen.

He floated through the wall into the Hufflepuff common room. All was still and all was well, though he was disconcerted by the presence of several official-looking notices on the wall. _Educational Decrees—nonsense!_ Fortunately, these sorts of things came and went at Hogwarts. The living would be terribly upset about something for a time, and then it would work out. A ghost could simply offer his sympathies, hold his peace, and carry on in good humour. There were only a couple of times in Hogwarts history when ghosts had taken any consequential action.

The Friar continued out into the corridors. He hummed an old chant, and almost didn't see James Potter out on another of his night-time misdoings. _No—Harry. How quickly the generations rolled on!_ It was Harry Potter who was mixed up in all the current troubles. In fact, he looked very troubled.

"What keeps you out so late, lad? May I be of help to you?"

Potter didn't acknowledge the Friar, but shoved his hands deeper in his pockets and walked faster. He looked angry and tired.

"Oh come come, you can tell me. Confide in an old Friar. I'll not get you in trouble."

Once again, disregard. The Friar had a good sense of when to leave a student alone, and this was definitely _not_ one of those times. Something about Potter's silent, exhausted fury actually begged for sympathy and a listening ear, though Potter himself wasn't willing to admit it. The Friar glided alongside the boy from corridor to corridor, until they reached some winding stairs going toward Gryffindor tower. Potter tripped on a step, tumbled—knees, elbows, and face—, and then uttered a few words not fit to print as he righted himself, oddly with his hand still in his pocket. He sat on the steps, out of steam.

"Oooch. I'm sorry I couldn't help you there."

"I'm fine."

"I'm afraid I doubt that. What troubles you?"

Harry Potter gave the Fat Friar a long look, and then started to talk.

—

Dolores Umbridge awoke from a deep and contented sleep. She felt inexplicably uneasy, though the curtains on her four-poster bed were closed and she couldn't see or hear anything wrong. Her sneakoscope was silent. She had fortified her private rooms with the best enchantments the Ministry could provide. Yet, a chill ran down her spine. _It's cold, that's all_ , she told herself. She laid down again but could not sleep, and an unearthly, harsh moan reached her ears as her curtains swayed in a draft. _It's just a windy night._ To make sure, she decided to peek out of her curtains, but as soon as she touched them they cast themselves wide open on all sides and she saw ghosts, at least eight sour-faced ghosts, looming around her bed.

Dolores' scream caught in her throat and became a choking sound as the ghosts slid toward her, tightening their circle. _No,_ she thought, trying to shake off her terror, _I know these ghosts._

"Baron, Sir Nicholas, stop this at once! This is highly irregular." The ghosts closed in. The lamps in her room were burning red. "What do you think you're—" Dolores' protests ended in a gasp as the Fat Friar plopped his substantial insubstantial self on top of her and plunged her into icy cold.

She wriggled out of bed and into her fuzzy dressing gown. She stood sputtering as Professor Binns open a book called "Phantasmagoria" and began reading,

"In such a case success depends on picking up some candle ends, or butter in the larder. With this you make a kind of slide (it answers best with suet),..."

The Fat Friar spread some kind of rancid lard all over the floor.

Binns continued, "...on which you must contrive to glide, and swing yourself from side to side—one soon learns how to do it."

Moaning Myrtle took up sliding and swaying on the slippery floor, waving her hands around her head and wailing. The Grey Lady circled the room ominously, the Bloody Baron shook his chains and gibbered, and worst of all, the Fat Friar led the other ghosts in running through Dolores Umbridge again and again.

"Ex _cuse_ me! Get back!" She warned, but it was no good. She hated chaos, and she hated feeling powerless. She shouted, threatened, and cast curses—knowing they would fly right through the ghosts and break her china.

"Out of my room! Out of the castle! Out, by the order of the High Inquisitor!"

The ghosts cackled.

"High Inquisitor?" repeated Nearly Headless Nick, then he shook his precarious head at her. "There is no such person."

Dolores seethed. "Dumbledore can order you leave me alone, and the Ministry can force him to do it!"

"We customarily respect the Headmaster's wishes, but even he can't drive us out," said The Grey Lady.

"And in this case, we are quite determined," stated the Fat Friar. "Either you admit that You-Know-Who has returned and start teaching Defence properly, or we will haunt you most unpleasantly."

It surprised Dolores that the Hufflepuff ghost seemed to be leading the attack. If Potter was behind this, she would have expected Nearly Headless Nick to be the one in charge.

Meanwhile, Professor Binns was still reading, "...For instance, take a Haunted Tower, with skull, crossbones, and sheet; blue lights to burn (say) two an hour, condensing lens of extra power, and set of chains complete: What with the things you have to hire—the fitting on the robe—and testing all the coloured fire..."

The sky outside was beginning to pale. Then, Peeves appeared with two bins of kitchen garbage.

"No!" Dolores cried. She ran to her fireplace, took a fistful of floo powder, and fled.

—

"Phantasmagoria" Poem by Lewis Carrol

Obvious credits to JK Rowling


End file.
